On Day 46, UMB attended his final Halloween tour stop at Mullerween 4 in Cherry Hill, NJ.
Thrilled to see Dragon Dragon there.
Quite a crowd in attendance.
UltraHandtis photo bomb.
Using dark powers to keep the chiminea nice and toasty.
Discussing lofty matters of state with Empress Nympho.
All was going splendidly until this Aryan Ape showed up playing the BDK theme music through his phone. UMB visibly aggravated. But it wasn't simple taunting, it was the precursor to...
AN AMBUSH!
By none other than BDK bigwig Claudio Castagnoli!
The schmoz continues. Later they would agree to cease actual violence, though the rivalry continued at the Beirut table.
Stephanie teaches Mantis how to cook by the book.
UMB and his totem lay a wicked curse on the camera lens.(Let me stop right here and give one more shout-out to Fae's Fashions who put that getup together. She is hella talented and did all of this with my clumsily-taken self-measurements and a handful of photographs and videos.)
UltraMantis Black vanished into the night sometime after the first 2 AM (daylight savings ended). It was at that point that "I" showed up to the party, and got to hang out with a lot of friends that "I" hadn't hung out with in a month.
I spent the next day diving headfirst into everything I'd kept myself from for the previous 7 weeks. Starting with a Mc10:35, on to the sports bar for a whole pile of non-vegan food, ended the day with a McRib (which is TERRIBLE, like rubber cement slathered in roof tar).
The next morning I woke up at 4 AM in a cold sweat, feeling awful. I called out of work but I kept on.
That was the first day, but for over a week afterwards I pretty much made a hit list of foods and methodically went around murdering them. At the end of the week, I felt like total crap. I realized how much healthier I felt in general during Project UMB, and starting back in on meat and dairy had made me feel sluggish and just crummy overall. I began making plans for a full-on return to veganism after the holidays.
At the time of this writing, I've scaled back the non-vegan consumption a good bit and it's helped noticeably. I'm still considering a return to veganism in the medium term, but it's looking more like I might have the discipline to actually strike some kind of reasonable middle ground. In the health aspect, Project UMB really showed me how a vegan diet (or, at least, a less non-vegan one) can be a positive thing for me.
Perhaps predictably, though, I never quite came around to identify with the ethical motivation that most (all?) vegans have. As Project UMB demonstrated, if something cannot be done to the absolute one hundred goddam percent, I probably don't have any interest in doing it at all. And the bottom line is that there is no way that any human being can completely avoid exploiting or harming animals, whether directly or by the nth-degree association that is common in many vegan prohibitions (i.e. "cigarettes aren't vegan because most of them contain honey, and even the organic brands like American Spirit that don't still are represented by the tobacco lobby that also represents tobacco companies that do use honey and also test their products on animals." That's a paraphrase). At some point, every vegan has to make the conscious choice to continue doing something that hurts animals, such as driving or riding in vehicles that emit toxic fumes and travel fast enough to goosh bugs on windshields. Some vegans will make it further than others in this regard, but eventually, they will all draw a line. But that's why I am not a vegan. Everybody carries their banners as far as they feel they need to.
Anyway, as a nice epilogue to all of this, I went to my second CHIKARA show last weekend, at the Arena (or the Asylum Arena or whatever it is) in Philadelphia. Simply the most fun I've ever had at a thing, with the possible exception of Electric Six at the North Star Bar circa late 2005. Every single match (except Kingston-Homicide, yawn) was spectacular, but obviously, one outshone all the others for me.
While I had met UltraMantis Black at my first show, he did not wrestle that night, just signed autographs and sold merch. But last weekend, he did wrestle...oh yes he did. And not just any match either, but a falls-count-anywhere against BDK leader Ares.
It was transcendent. We didn't get a chance to savor his entrance music much, for he got straight down to business, charging the ring and WHIPPING A CARTON OF SOY MILK AT ARES' FACE. And it just got better from there. They brawled pretty much everywhere inside the Arena, and for a decent stretch actually went at it on the pavement of Ritner Street. As soon as the action left the ring, the crowd just collected into a mob that followed the action around, and I think it must have been someone right next to me who took this picture:
Unfortunately, through shady officiating by BDK referee Derek Sabato, interference by Tursas, and the mysterious withdrawal of UMB's backup, my idol lost the match after eating a Praying Mantis Bomb, his own finishing move, onto a chair in the middle of the ring. He lost that day, but he will have his say in the end. I already have my tickets for the season finale in Reading in a couple of weeks, and I can't wait.Still, I have to say that, while I certainly revel in his triumphs and bemoan his defeats, it almost doesn't matter to me whether he wins or loses, because he does either in an equally spellbindingly awesome fashion. There's nobody else whose identity I'd rather have stolen for Halloween this year (at least...that costume ain't goin' nowhere!).
If you've been reading this blog the last 4 months, hey, thanks for hanging around for the adventure. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did (HA!). I'm still waiting on a couple more pictures, and when I get em I'll post em. And if I go vegan again, whether for good or because next year or the year after I have decided to do Project UMB Redux, I'll be back here, but otherwise, this is pretty much it. So, cheers!
May the new sunlight guide you.
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